


Sleep

by luoup (ravenic)



Series: It's All Friends Here, All Love [Platonic Week #3] [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, Platonic VLD Week, team voltron actually getting some damn rest for once
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-26 08:21:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12553244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravenic/pseuds/luoup
Summary: Day 1 Prompt 1: SleepNobody on the Castle of Lions ever seems to sleep.





	Sleep

**Author's Note:**

> i know, i know, i haven't even finished platonic week 2 and i have two unfinished fics and nano is in three days. 
> 
> but guess who has no self-control. 
> 
> it's me. 
> 
> enjoy.

Nobody on the Castle of Lions slept anymore. 

This was, unfortunately, somewhat to be expected.  They were seven against an all-but-omnipotent intergalactic empire.  Diplomacy, strategizing, training, maintenance, and of course combat took up every waking hour and quite a few more.  There was always work to be done. 

They were five Paladins wielding the most powerful weapon in the universe – the only weapon that could hope to stand against the Galra Empire.  Not one of them had real combat training.  They had all gone through Garrison training, of course, but none of them had ever expected to be soldiers.  Explorers, maybe, or daring adventurous pilots, or discoverers or inventors, but not soldiers.  Shiro had learned fighting the hard way, in the Galra arenas, and Keith was ferocious by nature and had all but taught himself how to fight, but neither of them had been _trained_ , not in the vicious violence of war and killing, and the others didn’t have any kind of combat background at all.  Even Allura had only really learned to fight after Zarkon had betrayed Altea, and ten thousand years would make any skill rusty, even when spent in suspended cryostasis.  Coran had probably been trained at some point, but again: ten thousand years. 

The humans didn’t have diplomacy training, either, and with the exception of Pidge none of them could read any of the Altean around the ship.  The Castle of Lions had once been kept up by a veritable army of mechanics, engineers, technicians, and coordinators (plus no small number of robots).  Now, it was left to the hands of a somewhat-forgetful advisor, a human mechanic who couldn’t read Altean, and another human electronics specialist who could, but only about as well as Allura had back when she didn’t even come up to Coran’s waist.  And neither of the two humans had ever seen this kind of alien tech, far more advanced than anything on Earth. 

The Alteans were processing the loss of their entire world, and the Humans were processing the discovery of aliens and outer space and a universe far bigger than they could ever have imagined.  They had to learn how to fight, how to use their weapons, how to be diplomatic and form alliances and not offend alien species, and besides all of that they needed to do basic living things like eat and (sometimes) sleep, as well as keep the castleship from crumbling around their ears. 

There was a lot to do.  The Castle’s beds were rarely used. 

By Standard Castle Time, it was approximately one o’clock in the morning.  There was a castle time, but they were always at some planet or other and needed to follow the time-pattern there, so castletime was rarely actually used. 

Which was in part why, at one in the morning, all seven inhabitants of the castleship (plus the mice) were sitting together in the common room instead of sleeping in their beds like reasonable beings. 

Allura and Shiro were seated each on one end of one of the room’s two couches.  The Princess was making notes on a possible ally, once familiar to Altea and still standing against Zarkon even now, while Shiro read slowly but steadily through a computer-translated “space e-book” as Lance had named the things.  This one was a history of sorts, and while it was now of course somewhat out-of-date, it was still interesting and gave insights into some of the alien races they were encountering.  In a chair to the free side of Allura, Coran had two data pads and five different books open, going through old files and documents and updating notes, mumbling to himself pleasantly as he worked. 

On the smaller couch was Hunk, reading through a set of (pre-examined for safe Human consumption) recipes from a new planet, making a list of possibilities for this week’s meals.  Keith sat beside him, staring with an honestly alarming amount of concentration at a datapad illustrating some of the training deck’s features and options.  His lips moved as if he was talking silently to himself, going through ideas for how best to make use of a super-futuristic high-tech practice area. 

Lance was on the floor at Hunk’s feet, a small plastic sheet spread out in front of him.  On it were all the components to a completely broken-down Altean rifle of some sort.  Lance had found it during one of the sporadic cleaning sprees of the castle’s unused rooms and took an interest in the thing, and Coran had happily given him an old set of instructions and diagrams on the weapon.  Of course, the entire document was in Altean, but there were pictures, and Lance was nothing if not creative.  For now he was just field-stripping the rifle to see what it really was and how it was put together.  Later he would take it to the castle’s practice range and find out what the Alteans had had going for them in terms of long-range light artillery.  Considering everything so far, he had pretty high hopes. 

Pidge’s space took up the other half of the floor in front of Hunk and Keith’s couch, to the point where if Keith wanted to get up he probably would have had to climb over the back of the couch itself.  She had what seemed like half the castle’s datapads and minicomputers spread in a loose blast-zone circle around her, plus enough cables and wires webbing in all directions to make the whole setup look the universe’s weirdest spider.  She’d shifted and shuffled around until her shoulders were pressed against Keith’s knees where he sat curled on the couch.  Her glasses glowed in the dim light. 

They were all busy (they were always busy), but even the companionable silence was nice.  It felt good to be around people, around the team, even if they weren’t talking.  Sometimes Allura would ask Coran his thoughts on a certain topic, or Lance would want Pidge to translate a word or two in the rifle’s manual, or Hunk would ask Shiro his thoughts on a dish, or Keith would poke Pidge’s head and mention a feature of the training deck.  But otherwise the room was relatively quiet.  Pens rustled on paper, fingers tapped keys, and the pieces of the rifle clicked and clinked gently as Lance worked. 

Time drifted. 

Shiro conked out first.  He was always exhausted – it was an open secret – and the warm quiet room plus the dusty old history reading, safe and surrounded by people he loved, was enough to make their brave leader fall fast asleep.  He made some weird snorty strangly noises at first, but Allura reached over and shifted him until the Black Paladin was lying mostly against the arm of the couch in a position that let him actually breathe and kept the snoring at a tolerable volume.  Nobody on the castleship ever got enough rest, but Shiro had it bad enough that they were all glad he was able to sleep, however long it lasted. 

Coran was next.  The rustling of old books slowed and slowed until the next time Allura looked up, her advisor’s eyes were closed.  She went over and moved the datapads to the table so they wouldn’t slide off Coran’s lap and break, and then they left him to sleep, mumbling into his moustache as he dreamed. 

Keith was even quieter.  He stopped bothering Pidge at some point, but the datapad had no volume and he was barely moving anyway, so he could have been asleep for minutes before Lance glanced over and noticed.  The Red Paladin was curled into a tiny ball that would have looked uncomfortable for anyone else.  But they were used to Keith, and so Hunk just patted the other boy lightly on the ankle before they all went back to their work. 

Pidge had slid progressively downwards over time until she was lying on her stomach, tapping halfheartedly at a laptop and every so often glancing over at another pad or two that she had propped up against other pieces of tech.  Eventually the tapping stopped.  Hunk sighed and got up, scooping the girl from her facedown flat-on-the-floor position and placing her gently on the couch beside Keith.  The two Arms curled around each other like kittens, both of them fast asleep for once. 

Eventually Lance had examined the rifle to his satisfaction.  He carefully reassembled the piece and checked it over one last time, then the Blue Paladin clambered up onto the couch between Hunk and Pidge.  He draped himself halfway over Hunk, letting out a tremendous sigh as Hunk gave him a few absentminded pets.  He was asleep in a matter of minutes. 

His work was slightly hindered by Lance being plastered over half of Hunk’s lap, but the Yellow Paladin finally finished the meal planning for the next week, plus some vague ideas beyond that for good measure.  He had most of the ingredients and a shopping list (a Space Shopping List).  Everything would be nutritious enough to keep them all going, Human and Altean alike, as well as actually tasting good because sure, food goo gave all the nutrients their species needed but it was _not_ a pleasurable way to keep oneself going.  They had it hard enough, they deserved to eat good food at the very least.  Task completed, Hunk browsed through a half-translated Altean cookbook until his eyes finally slid shut. 

The room was quiet.  Allura didn’t notice anything until suddenly there were tiny paws pushing her hands away from her work, tugging and pulling until the screenpads and books were stacked on the floor.  The mice squeaked and chittered at her quietly, climbing up two to each shoulder to nestle into her hair. Everyone was asleep.  Really, truly asleep, resting the way they so rarely got to rest.  Nobody could work forever.  The alliances could wait until tomorrow. 

“Goodnight,” the princess whispered to the sleeping room.  Then Allura closed her eyes and drifted off to the sound of tiny mouse snores. 

The Castle of Lions was quiet.  Machines hummed gently and automatic scans followed their schedule, but space remained safely empty.  No Galra ships approached.  No distress beacons sounded.  No alarms went off. 

The eleven inhabitants of the castleship slept until morning. 

**Author's Note:**

> made myself sleepy


End file.
